CUSTOMERS are calling for the Co-operative Group to shelve plans to shut their Helsby convenience store.
Shocked staff at the Chester Road shop were told on Friday that it would close on Saturday, January 2, only three weeks away.
The news prompted a petition by hundreds of customers.
Audrey Davies, 73, of Hale View Road, Helsby, said: “The Co-operative group’s visions and aims are to ‘enhance the lives of our people, members and customers and communities in which we trade’.
“We feel betrayed. The people of Helsby have been let down, they should be using those principles with their own customers.”
In just two days more than 270 people signed the petition, with more expected to add their names.
“I have also written to the Co-operative’s chief executive, Peter Marks, and asked for a stay of closure and letters to be sent to all members in a five-mile area,” added Audrey, a former Helsby Secondary School teacher.
“The Co-op is a unique business run by its members, they are forgetting their principles that the members are important. I am a shareholder in the Co-op and we should have a say.”
Audrey also praised the store’s role in the community, and said: “It’s very important to the village.
“It opens before Tesco and it stays open later on Sundays.
“A lot of the elderly people who cannot walk all the way to Tesco are dependant on it, and it’s the only place where people can pay for gas, electricity and their TV licence.”
A Co-operative Group spokesman said: “The decision was taken with the greatest reluctance and is due to the store’s poor trading performance.
“Every effort will be made to redeploy as many of the two full-time and six part-time staff as possible at other Co-operative stores.
“Members have a say through a range of opportunities, including members meetings and the election of representatives to area committees.”
